Rainbow Cookies – Making Pride Weekend a Little Longer
For those of you out of the know, this weekend was Pride weekend, a time us non-heterosexuals celebrate our identity. For those of you in the know, Happy Pride! Across the nation cities hosted festivals, parades, parties and more. One state, New York, even decided to take the awesome legislative step and allow gay marriage–yay. I spent yesterday celebrating my own gayness–both the homosexual part of the definition and the carefree happiness part of the definition–at Houston’s Pride Festival. It was festive and entertaining to say the least. By my side the whole day was my great friend, and ally to the lgbtq world–and contributor here–Alicia Sandoval.
She was snapping away shots on my 7D and I was using my 35mm. Since my film is still being developed, I will borrow some of the shots she took to share with you. If you haven’t been to a pride festival I definitely suggest checking it out. The motto live, love, free is often adopted and I can assure you it is a sentiment shared by most people attending. Of course, if you haven’t been to pride there is one thing you need to be prepared for. Here are a couple almost, somewhat NSFW picture to explain.
Yep, the whole clothes-optional think is taken to heart with some of the boys. Of course it isn’t all naked boys running around.
There are also loads of people kissing, especially lesbians.
Frivolity aside, there are a lot of supporters… and cute umbrellas.
My favorite may have been getting to see our Mayor, Annise Parker–the first openly lesbian mayor of a major city–during the parade.
I even ran into one of the check-out/bagger boys at my local grocery store. He attacked me with glitter. Yes, you can expect that to happen at Pride.
This is all leading to me explaining how I spent most of my today resting on my couch thanks to yesterday. That is until I came across a post for some gorgeous-looking rainbow cookies at Ken’s Hungry Rabbit blog. I quickly thought, I can do this! In fact I planned to make three shapes, rainbows, flag and spiral circles. Yeah… That didn’t happen. The recipe may be straight forward but the rest can get kinda tricky, especially if you’re not in the most patient of moods.
The dough making part is easy, but then dividing the dough into six portions and dying each gets a little time consuming–but look how pretty! By this point I began to lose interest in making a few different shapes. I got around to making the flag rectangles. How did they turn out? Sure as heck no where near as pretty and perfect as Ken’s. They were tasty though.
I also didn’t use his recipe as I have a goto recipe for basic vanilla-butter cookies.The recipe has five ingredients and takes about two minutes to make. Although this timesaving recipe goes out the window once you get past the mixing part. Should you try it? Yeah, if you’ve got some time and patience.
This recipe is adopted from Bo Friberg. The recipe should yield about 5 dozen cookies.
Rainbow Cookies
Ingredients
6 ounces sugar (3/4 cup)
14 ounces unsalted butter at room temp. (3 1/2 sticks)
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 pound bread flour (3 cups)
Red, yellow, green, blue & purple food dye
1 egg for an egg wash
Instructions
1. Place the sugar, butter, eggs and vanilla in a mixing bowl. Mix
at low speed until just combined.
2. Add the flour and mix until the dough is smooth.
3. Divide the dough into six equal portions. The total weight is
about 2 pounds 5 ounces. Each of the six portions should be just
a bit over 6 ounces.
4. Dye each of the individual portions with the different colors to
make a red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple dough. Prepare
to use a good amount of die to get a bright color. During baking
the dough will darken just slightly. If you don't have purple food
dye, red and blue should work together just fine.
5. Flatten each color between parchment paper and refrigerate about
an hour until the dough is firm enough to work with.
6. Working one one color at a time starting with purple, keeping
the other colors in the fridge, roll out the hard dough into a
a long strip about two inches wide and 1/8 inch thick.
7. Brush the egg wash over the top of the purple layer.
8. Pull out the next layer from the fridge steps 6 and 7 but with
each different color. The layers should be layered purple, blue,
green, yellow, orange and red. Be sure to add egg wash between
between each layer.
9. Once the block is assembled refrigerate it for another 30
minutes to let it harden again. Preheat the oven to 375F.
10. Once hardened cut the edges off to make a clean rectangular
prism.
11. Slice 1/4 inch segments from the long rectangular log to make
each cookie.
12. Lay each cookie on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
13. Bake each sheet for 12 to 15 minutes until the cookies are
slightly firm to the touch.
Pride photos by Alicia Sandoval.
Food photos by Russell.
What great cookies ! I think they look very cute and colorful. Pridefest must have been so much fun – everyone is smiling from ear to ear. :)
Thanks! I’ll definitely be trying them again to see if I can’t get them down pat. And that was the funnest part; Everyone was so happy.
Thanks for trying out my recipe. It does take a bit of patience. cooking the eggs in advance makes the dough dryer and easier to manipulate. This step also makes the cookies crispy.
What an awesome idea and great looking cookie! I’ve been looking for “something special” for July 4th and an upcoming bridal shower……I can lay red/white/blue for the Fourth and orange/purple for the bridal shower. You’re genius, thanks for sharing!!!!!!!!
P.S. do you think I could stack the layers in a jelly pan lined with parchment prior to slicing? Also, how did you slice the cookies so perfectly?
What a great idea for the different colors for those two different events! I think stacking the layers in jelly pan with parchment paper should work. I stacked mine on a cutting board but on a layer of parchment paper. I guess I should have noted that. Also, I used one of those chop and serve knifes–super thin and very sharp, it looks almost like a pasta scraper–but you can use any sharp knife that will cut through the dough without compressing it. Let me know if that answers your questions!
I like the cookies.
What amazing cookies, the rainbow colors are always plenty of happiness, it’s good to know that we can play coloring the cookie dough.
Tanks for sharing.
Thanks for stopping by! You can definitely color up that dough!
I love these! Good friends of mine were in NY this weekend when marriage equality passed and they said the excitement in the air was incredible. I keep my fingers crossed that one day the South will vote for equality as well.
Happy Pride!!!
I can only imagine how awesome the atmosphere is up there! Yes, hopefully one day the south will follow suit.
Thanks! And thanks for stopping by!
Im in Chicago and i miss the pride celebration every flippin year :(!!! I saw a post on a rainbow cheesecake that i was wondering how the heck they did it!
We’ll have to make sure and remind you in time for next year! I made a rainbow cake once. It takes lots of food dye and some patience but it can be done.
Yay New York! I hope more states will follow suite. love your photos and your cookies, they are a perfect way to celebrate!
Thank you very much!
Fabulous use for food dyes! I still hold out hope that KS and MO will join those states some day. Heck, Iowa did. So happy for the New Yorkers who can now marry whomever they want.
One day! I’m hoping the same about Texas but I’m sure it will be a little bit before that… actually I’m sure we’ll be the last.
Your cookies look great! Full of joy and happiness!
Thank you!
Happy Pride! The cookies look absolutely wonderful! I’ve also seen recipes out there for rainbow cakes, too… like the cookies, the stunning results are well worth the time it takes to dye individual dough batches.
Thank you! The colorfulness is definitely worth it. I love the look of rainbow cookies and cakes. Definitely worth the time and patience.
Woo hoo, happy pride. I’m in SF which was totally awesome.
Happy pride to you too! I bet San Fran was awesome! Thanks for stopping by!
Oh these cookies look fantastic! And happy belated Pride Weekend to you =)
Happy pride! The cookies look so festive! :) When I lived in Chicago I went to the pride parade numerous times in support of my friends… and I always had the best time of my life!! :)
Happy Pride to you! I’ve never been to a Pride day but sounds like fun! The cookies look fantastic and definitely festive!
great colourful cookies, really caught my eye, that’s the beauty of a rainbow :-) celebrating in style, happy baking (-:
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I wasn’t in the know but know a lot of people who were. I just didn’t know it! :-) This is absolutely awesome and will happily celebrate anyone who is about live, love and free…all together. Wonderful cookies, so fun and cheerful as was the weekend.
I had so much fun making these :) it was actually my 12 year old sister´s idea :D
they dont look as classy but i still wanted to share ^^
http://i52.tinypic.com/2jcc2ux.jpg
thanks for sharing!
Aww fun! Im glad you had fun making them! They’re definitely a fun cookie, if not labor intensive.
:)